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The House Appropriations Committee voted, 31-18, Thursday to advance a fiscal 2015 agriculture spending bill with a controversial rider that would allow schools to opt out of nutrition rules requiring more fruits and vegetables, less sodium and more whole grain-rich products if they are losing money from the healthier meals.

The move sets up what promises to be a contentious conference between the House and Senate bills, although the measures have yet to clear either chamber.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, told POLITICO after the vote that he’s confident Republicans will ultimately prevail in giving school districts the option of a waiver.

“I think that between now and when we go to conference, that you’re going to hear the school nutritionists speak very loudly to [lawmakers],” said Aderholt, who predicted that some Democrats will break ranks and back the effort.

“This is not a roll back and so I think that people, when they see what the language is, they’ll be very open to this,” Aderholt said.

But Democrats are digging in their heels, buoyed by uncharacteristically public political support from first lady and the fact that the Senate Appropriations Committee did not include the waiver in the recent approval its agriculture spending bill.

White House spokesman Jay Carney responded to the House Appropriations Committee action during the daily briefing on Thursday, calling the rider on school lunches “a provision that replaces the judgment of doctors and nutritionists with the opinions of politicians regarding what is healthy for our kids.”

“The House Republican proposal would undercut school nutrition standards that have already been successfully implemented in over 90% of schools,” Carney said. “These are the same people who just last year declared pizza as a vegetable and who now think that decisions about kids’ health should be made by politicians instead of pediatricians.”

The Senate spending bill does not contain waiver language but includes a much more limited amendment that asks the Department of Agriculture to further study the next wave of rules that would mandate all breads, pastas and cereals be whole grain rich and set stricter limits on sodium in school meals. It also asks the department to ensure products like whole grain tortillas and biscuits are adequately available to schools.

The White House and nutrition advocates, however, view the waiver as a veiled attempt to gut the law until Congress reauthorizes child nutrition programs next year.

House Democrats vociferously fought back during the markup of the House spending bill Thursday, but failed to pass an amendment by Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) to strip the waiver language from the measure. The panel rejected the amendment by a 29-22 vote.

“We don’t tell kids, ‘Look, you don’t have to take math if it’s hard or science if it’s hard,’” Farr said. “This opt out of nutrition is just the wrong way to go.”

Aderholt, however, strongly defended what he called “a very real problem in many school districts across the country.”

“We’ve had calls, we’ve had emails, we’ve had meetings with school nutritionists, who some of us affectionately know as lunch ladies,” he said.

Aderholt emphasized that the waiver only allows schools a one-year break on regulations “if and only if a school has lost money over a six-month period.”

In a particularly pointed exchange during markup, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) asked Republicans on the committee whether they are aiming to make waivers permanent – a concern that Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and others have raised in recent days.

“So the majority does not intend to eliminate these nutrition standards?” asked Wasserman Shultz.

“Not in this bill,” Aderholt said. The packed room erupted in laughter and then Aderholt noted that the waiver would only apply to the next school year.

The opposition to many of the new nutrition standards, which stem from the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, has been fueled primarily by an extensive lobbying effort by the School Nutrition Association.

The group, which represents 55,000 school nutrition professionals and the food companies that supply the National School Lunch Program, has been flying in school meal directors and cafeteria workers from across the country to ask lawmakers to give schools some regulatory relief by “hitting the pause button” on the sweeping rules.